TEST DRIVE - Anyone Game?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 2:18 am

Hello Racers...

I get my X-Box 360 on November 23rd and I will be getting TEST DRIVE UNLIMITED - Similar to MCO in online play. Is anyone interested in forming an old school MCO club on this new game?

How about getting a Test Drive Unlimited forum on here?

Just some ideas. If anyone is interested, please post back.

http://www.msxbox-world.com/media/movie ... 3-2005.wmv

Posi
HSW - Uptown Pacific

B00ST · Post by **B00ST** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 2:46 am

I'm still not completely sure about this one.. Just because I don't know exactly how it works? Good chance I'll get it, but we'll see...

In 1987, Test Drive was as much a romance as a driving game, an unabashed fantasy role-play of those twin American dreams: The open road and the gull winged supercar. Since then, the road racing genre’s priorities have drifted from leisurely affairs to epileptically intense speed dating, and the Test Drive name has languished in ill-fitting brand pile-ups such as Eve of Destruction.

So while it may seem odd that the keys to a quintessentially American experience have been handed to a French developer, V-Rally creator Eden has produced a concept that looks back to Test Drives beginnings and ahead for the genre as a whole. This manifesto is apparent from the first glimpse of the game’s Hawaiian location, putting miles of clear pacific water between Unlimited’s tropical highways and the bleached urbanity of its competitors. Its an affluent driving paradise that stretches further than the lavishly modelled car interiors: Play opens not in a garage, but the carefully arranged lounge of your hilltop estate, where your custom avatar reclines overlooking blue sky and swaying fronds.

Here, choosing your designer-label outfit is at least as important as choosing your ride, as your personal style will be on display both behind the wheel and in the multiplayer lobbies. Instead of impersonal text lists, Unlimited’s lobbies take the form of common drive in areas or player created VIP clubs dotted across the island, an approach to community that sees studio head Stephane Baudet reference World of Warcraft as often as he does Gran Turismo or Forza. “Most online driving games are an offline game with an online component,” he says, “and we’re doing the opposite.”

As soon as a player pulls out of their driveway into the dauntingly large gameworld (recreating the entire island of Oahu with an eye for ‘enhanced gameplay experience’ rather than fastidious accuracy), They’re an online presence. Unlimited isn’t a true MMO, considering the gridlock that would ensue from the global population, but an ideal multiplayer world for each player, with server-side calculations displaying the 16 closest players with matching profiles. Flashing your headlights at one initiates an immediate duel, or you can tail them to a lobby area for a larger event: either way, it’s in setting the rules for these face-offs that Unlimited lives up to its name

Races can be tracked anywhere across the islands roads, from a ten-second drag to the four-hour marathon of the coastal loop, chosen from among straight races, time attacks, speed runs, or capture the flag sessions, with or without traffic or police
(In original test-drive style, police aren’t crazed dodgems but rather pace cars, immediately ending your race with a fine if they overtake you). “Each day we are finding new modes,” says Baudet, “like ‘No using brakes’.”

Between competitive sessions there are solo challenges to be discovered, and random point-to-point driving missions such as ferrying female shoppers between malls, or delivering hitchhikers to the airport. There’s also the sheer joy of driving, with the combination of an expansive draw distance, Open environment and the ability to drop the electric windows and pump-up the radio with a flick of the D-pad proving sinfully luxurious. But exploration can be costly – not due to the originally intended feature of having to refuel, since pulled due to ‘being boring’, but in discovering the car dealers and mod shops supplying Oahu’s virtual economy.

Cars and car parts are ranked in rarity, including limited editions that fleetingly appear on the market before being taken out of production. It’s a similar set-up to collectible card games, something Eden has obviously considered, as the current UI displays parts as exactly that – trading cards, which are dragged into spare slots on a car to apply the modification. Trading with other players is performed over an ebay-styled auction system, including the requirement that you supply virtual photographs of your goods to accompany that crucial all-caps headline. “Forza introduced the trading concept, but I found it a little impractical. This is the next-generation version,” Baudet explains. Its mentioned that ebay itself has been approached to lend its appearance to Unlimited’s virtual version; the issue of bidding real-world money on virtual sports cars, though, remains undecided.

Its testament to Unlimited’s intoxicating vision that it can take until the final paragraph of a preview to mention how it actually drives, and in its current state – largely still the E3 build – this aspect requires, and is receiving, attention. Handling seems both cold and slightly samey among the available cars, and is unfinished on the bikes: incomplete physics further complicate matters. Now rescheduled to be fashionably late to the 360 launch, though, there’s time for Eden to make good on that Test Drive dream, and springboard it back to relevance for a generation which might need a little open-top dreaming more than ever.

Drakkan · Post by **Drakkan** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 7:19 am

Hey posi, long time no see!

Getting a first shipment xbox and test drive also, so if an old school MCO club is made I will join.

Now hopefully the game lives up to the hype. From what I hear your xbox live account will transfer over to the 360, so if it does my account name is Marxus.

Midtown Guy · Post by **Midtown Guy** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 11:57 am

$700 for xbox and what... $100 for the game?

I don't know why but 3 games just doesn't seem worth 1k :?

tjk · Post by **tjk** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 1:49 pm

MidtownSpaceGuy wrote:$700 for xbox and what... $100 for the game?

I don't know why but 3 games just doesn't seem worth 1k :?

what r u smoking?

the xbox 360 comes in two packages. the core and the premium. the core costs $299 and the premium costs $399.

the premium package is the one that comes with the HD and a few other things so its the better buy. games are $60.

400+60=460

not sure where u got ur info.

Drakkan · Post by **Drakkan** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:21 pm

but its worth noting that if you wanna reserve without a bundle at EB (and likely other companies like them) you gotta reserve in an actual store instead of online.

Satchmo · Post by **Satchmo** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 6:06 pm

Midtown gets his info the same place he gets his opinions....

a little toilet paper will work for either.

Z28K · Post by **Z28K** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 8:29 pm

Must resist the urge to buy XBox360................... :evil: :-x

Midtown Guy · Post by **Midtown Guy** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 12:00 am

tjk wrote:not sure where u got ur info.

this website where a whole bunch of idiots talk all day about anything and everything....

it goes by the name... "The Majic Bus"

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 1:20 am

Drakkan wrote:Hey posi, long time no see!

Getting a first shipment xbox and test drive also, so if an old school MCO club is made I will join. Now hopefully the game lives up to the hype. From what I hear your xbox live account will transfer over to the 360, so if it does my account name is Marxus.

Hey Drakken!
Well, I haven't bought a console since SNES. Computer gaming has become quite sad since the console wars began so I finally sold out and am getting the Xbox 360. My new Samsung DLP 720p Tv kinda helped with the decision. I'll miss my 1st generation Momo wheel tho.

I do not have an X-box live account and name yet, but I did get a year gold membership with my bundle so I will post back when I am set up and we can hook up and cruise some pavement.

Boost... I will keep you updated as I'm sure Drakken will to as to how cool this game really is. And you don't have to worry about me sugar-coating it. If the game sucks, I'll be sure to say so.

Race On!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:37 am

Well, bad news on the Test Drive: Unlimited release date. It appears Atari has pushed the release of this Xbox 360 game to March 2006.

Sweet_Lou · Post by **Sweet_Lou** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:01 pm

MidtownSpaceGuy wrote:
this website where a whole bunch of idiots talk all day about anything and everything....

it goes by the name... "The Majic Bus"

hey now! I resemble that remark! as do you!

hey Posi. sup bro?

Satchmo · Post by **Satchmo** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:54 pm

Well that sux. But it means I don't have to divert any funds away from my Dakota Digital dash. 8-)

Good to see you again Posi. Feel free to yell at Carter in the other folder. We'll all laugh (at him).... especially if you do it for no reason other than because he's Carter.

B00ST · Post by **B00ST** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 3:50 pm

Posi wrote:Well, bad news on the Test Drive: Unlimited release date. It appears Atari has pushed the release of this Xbox 360 game to March 2006.

I'd get Project Gotham Racing 3 until Test Drive comes out then 8-) Game looks awesome..

Drakkan · Post by **Drakkan** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 6:56 pm

I was about to post the release date thing too

guess I will have to switch that reserve to a release game

Sub · Post by **Sub** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:39 am

Hahahahah! Posi! No shit...

That's a name the Open Trials burned into my skull. You, Hidro and Fishy. I won't be buying any Xbox 360, but if any MCO tracks ever make a return on a PC game, you can be sure i'll be there. Cheers!

~Sub

(Subhuman - Uptown)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 4:14 pm

Hello again everyone!
Well... I got my Xbox 360 and am ready for Test Drive Unlimited to be released. It is looking like not until June now though.

They put a message board up for the game, so come on over and register and start asking the Atari devs the tough questions. Or come over and see if you can get me kicked off the message boards :-P

Anyway, it is looking good. I cant wait for the launch and play in a persistent online racing environment again.

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/fo ... .php?f=382

Posi
High Stakes Warriors
Uptown Pacific

Z28K · Post by **Z28K** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:20 pm

Posi wrote: Or come over and see if you can get me kicked off the message boards :-P

That's to easy................

Ripper's Majic Bus

TEST DRIVE - Anyone Game?

TEST DRIVE - Anyone Game?

New: Updated Release Date

Re: New: Updated Release Date